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1X01 – Sentinel – Act I
Two Days Earlier.
A sharply dressed man in his late twenties stood in the foyer of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. He was handsome, though not overly so, and he carried about himself a sense of purpose. Tucked under his arm was a small brown package which he shuffled as he waited patiently.
“Mr Gavin,” Scott said as he approached, Jubilee at his side as she had fetched the math teacher upon the dapperly dressed man’s arrival, “you have something for us?”
“I suppose,” Jacob Gavin, Jr., a mutant otherwise known as Courier seeing as he ran a rather exclusive courier service which was used by mutant and dictator alike, “I was contracted to deliver this package to ‘The X-Men’,” he held out the box, complete with barcoded label, “I was told I could find them at the Xavier Institute.”
“The X-Men?” Scott frowned, wasn’t that the name Kitty suggested?
“He wouldn’t let me sign for it,” Jubilee pouted.
“Somehow I doubt Magneto would hire me to deliver to a fifteen-year-old,” Courier said dryly, slipping a PDA from his pocket to scan the barcode on the label, “but Mr Summers, this I can see,” he then laid the PDA on the top of the box with a stylus, “sign here please.”
“Wait,” Scott paused as he reached for the stylus, “this is from Magneto?”
Courier politely laughed at him, “Who else would need a black market, though universally respected, courier service to deliver a simple package to a school?”
“Point taken,” Cyclops frowned, signing his name on the indicated line before gingerly taking the box.
“It’s not a bomb is it?” Jubilee asked, getting closer for a better look.
“Of course not,” Courier assured her, “for that I charge extra.”
Scott worked open the flaps and pushed aside the peanut packing to see a silver plastic bag, the kind of thing he’d see sitting around Kitty or Doug’s room. Carefully opening it up, he pulled out what looked to be a hard drive, the words ‘Property of Bastion Industries’ clearly written on it.
Why would Magneto send them one of the drives they stole?
…
“This is definitely one of Sentinel’s software drives,” Doug said, the item connected to his laptop, Kitty at his side on her own laptop, “looks like the designers in charge of this part of the project were focused on the abnormal occurrences which could be the result of mutant activity. They had a lot of variables to focus on and map out.”
“There,” Kitty pointed to his screen and he nodded, tapping away at something, “okay, so five teams were working on this section alone, this is only a fifth of the software.”
“And we got a name,” Doug’s fingers never stopped working, “Project: Wideawake.”
“Sounds military,” Logan gruffed out and JP gave a general sound of agreement.
“We already suspected the military was behind Sentinel,” Scott was trying to consider the implications of the hard drive, “but at the moment I want to know why Magneto sent this to us after his Acolytes went through all the trouble to steal it.”
“To answer that, we must first we must ask another question,” when Ororo spoke she had a way of commanding everyone’s presence, “did Magneto steal it to use it, or so that others could not?”
“Why would he want to use it?” Bobby asked, one brow raised in confusion, “Not like he doesn’t know where to find us.”
“It would be his own version of Cerebro,” Jean answered him, sounding a bit sullen, “only he wouldn’t need a telepath to run it. And by the sounds of it, Sentinel would be more effective, running 24-hours a day, not limited to locking down on one mutant at a time…”
“It’s a recruitment tool,” JP shook his head, “and Magneto could build his ranks to an unimaginable level.”
“Only if he has the actual Sentinel A.I. lattice, Nimrod you called it, right Kitty?” Scott asked the young girl.
“Yeah,” she frowned, “all the software they stole is dead weight, as long as this is the only prototype.”
“Prototype,” Bobby drew the word out, “usually denotes being the only one, right?”
“Most of the time,” she shrugged, looking to Doug for support but he only echoed the look on her face.
“So,” Scott started to muse out loud, “Magneto presumably copies the contents of the drive and then sends it to us, why?” The group went silent for a moment, so Scott continued, “Kitty, Doug, was there anything specific on that drive, something that wouldn’t be on any other drive besides the specific variables the programmers were working on? You said something about Project: Wideawake?”
“Ah, yeah, it was in the directory file,” she told them.
“There’s a lot of code here,” Doug added, “we can take a magnifier to it, see if anything pops out, but it’s gonna take several hours, possibly days.”
“Alright, you two get on it, I’ll excuse you from classes today,” he glanced over at the Headmistress, “with your permission of course.”
“Whatever Magneto’s motives are,” Ororo answered sourly, “they are rarely altruistic. I think it’s better we find out what he’s up to sooner, rather than later.”
“Well,” Logan lifted his mass from where he was leaning against the wall, “while Half-Pint and the Geek are doing their thing, I’ll see if I can find out about this Project: Wideawake the old fashioned way.”
“That’s a good idea,” Scott was not afraid to admit it. Logan had been in the military for a long time and while his memories could be a bit fuzzy, and in some cases completely gone, he still knew people and moreover, they knew him.
“I’ve got a few sources of my own,” JP offered, “I’ll put I out some feelers, see what shakes loose.”
“I don’t think we have to bother being discreet at this juncture,” Scott added, giving the man a nod, “not after the incident at M-TAM.”
“Which brings up the million dollar question, Slim,” Wolverine eyed him carefully, “what are we going to do about Nimrod?”
Bobby raised his hand, “I vote we let Jubilee use it for target practice.”
“I gave my word to Agent Duncan that we’d return it,” Scott told them pointedly, “we’re not the Brotherhood, we’re not thieves.”
“Then why did we steal it in the first place?” Jean asked, one brow raised.
Scott frowned awkwardly, “Borrowed…”
“No, first Logan uses it to sharpen his claws,” Bobby went on, “then Jubilee can use it for target practice.”
“Not a bad idea, Popsicle,” Logan snickered.
“We’re not going to destroy government property,” Scott frowned at them both.
JP snickered, “Says the man who took out a lamp post last night…”
Scott was really starting to lose ground on this argument, “That was an accident, what Bobby and Logan are suggesting would be deliberate.”
“You can’t seriously be thinking of letting them have that back, four-eyes,” Logan was practically laughing at him. “It’s a virtual WMD.”
“I don’t like the idea of them having Sentinel any more than you do,” he stood up to the much older man, “but I’m looking at all the facts here. For one, Agent Duncan has stuck his neck out for us more times than we can count, this has been no exception. Duncan getting Sentinel back would as much help him as it would us.”
“It’s been beneficial,” Jean agreed with him, “having Fred on our side, covering for us.”
“If we tell him what Sentinel is,” Bobby argued, “then surely—”
“He’ll stick his neck out again, yes,” Scott interrupted, having already thought this through, “and he’ll get himself fired. As much as I don’t want to lose an asset in the government, he’s a friend too,” no one wanted to argue that point with him, so he added, “We also want to show the government that mutants are not the bad guys.”
“Has anyone ever tried to explain to Magneto that his actions are nothing but self-fulfilling prophecies?” JP asked the room and he received some very worn and tired stares from Ororo, Scott, Jean, even Logan, “Okay then.”
“I understand what you are saying, Scott,” Jean weighed in, “and I do agree we must be the better person, but do you think this is really the time to prove it, considering what’s at stake?”
“All the more reason to do it,” Scott would not waver on this point.
“We have to be the first ones to make that move,” Ororo agreed.
“We could work on an anti-Sentinel program,” Kitty offered up and everyone turned to look at her. “They’re at least a year from finishing, we have enough here to build a defense against Sentinel, even a shut-down virus. It might need a little tweaking once a full version of Sentinel goes online, seeing how good its hacking and anti-hack protocols are, but we’ll not be completely defenseless.”
“Still risky,” Logan shook his head, “Magneto might steal Sentinel, again, and I’m not sure who’d I rather have it, Bucket Head or the military.”
“It’s a risk we’ll have to take,” Scott told the man. “No matter what we choose to do with Sentinel, we’re either taking risks or playing into the military’s idea that mutants are to be feared, which only makes Magneto’s position stronger. Personally, I believe the moral victory is the most important one to win right now.”
Scott looked at each one of his teammates, seeing the expressions on their faces vary from reluctant agreement to barely concealed discontent.
“Kitty and Doug do their thing, then Nimrod goes back, the way we found it,” he told them all in his most authoritative voice. “It’s my decision, it’s not up for a vote, but if anyone can come up with a better idea that doesn’t involve sinking to the Brotherhood’s level, I’m all ears.”
An awkward silence filled the room until Bobby said, “Well, I got nothing.”
“Fine,” Logan spoke with a low growl, “we play it your way, Boy Scout,” and with that the feral mutant continued on his way out of the room leaving Scott to wonder just how far he could push his team as their leader… and if he really wanted to find out.
…
Homeland Security Assistant Director Valerie Cooper sat at her desk, tapping a pen against her teeth as she read the latest report which was classified Top Secret, though she considered that a joke. In reality, sensitive government information was kept secret on a glorified honor system.
She shook her head and flipped open the next file, everything the government had on a certain school in Westchester, New York. It was a binder actually, seeing as it was too thick to exist in the classic manila file folder. It was one of three that came out of a box which was sitting next to her desk.
“A.D. Cooper,” there was a knock at her door to accompany the voice.
“Enter,” Val didn’t bother looking up, she recognized the woman.
“I have the rest of the files you requested,” the analyst brought over four of the typical folders, each an inch thick, “everything we have on the names you listed, I automatically catalogued them as classified Top Secret.”
“Thanks, Rita,” Val opened up the first file, the drivers license photo of Robert Drake of Long Island peering up at her with a cheesy grin.
“Not a problem,” Rita said like a person not used to getting thanks for doing her job, “we’re awaiting some files from Canada on Beaubier. Looks like he was Department H and his records are classified Top Secret and SOI.”
“Did you speak to Agent Brown?” she asked as she pulled out John-Paul Beaubier’s file, passport photo and travel visa documents right on top.
“I did,” the woman nodded, “explained it was a ‘super human’ issue and they agreed to share, but getting files out of Department H is a feat even the Canadian Security Intelligence Service are hard pressed to complete.”
Valerie sighed, she knew that all too well, “Keep at it, if I have to put in call the Director of the Department of National Defense myself I will.”
“It’ll probably have to come to that,” Rita shrugged, “but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Appreciate it,” the agent went back to looking at the files, the next one was the thinnest, not a lot of information on Katherine Pryde, she wasn’t even old enough to vote.
Rita left, shutting the door behind her, and Val took a moment to herself, sitting back in the chair and surveying the piles of paperwork before her. “Why now?” she asked the air.
“Why go on the offensive?” she rubbed her chin before leaning on the arm rest of her chair. “Finally fed up? Or do you have an end game?”
Either way, this could only end badly.
…
In a warehouse on the Jersey docks, three individuals sat around playing cards on a makeshift table while a fourth chatted on his phone a few feet away.
“I keep telling you,” Avalanche sighed as he put down a card, “’lighting it on fire’ is not a legitimate strategy.”
“Sure it is,” Pyro seemed absolutely sure as Rogue tried to hide her smirk behind her cards. “Name anything and I bet I can solve it with fire.”
“Fine,” the Grecian folded and unfolded his cards in his hand, “a grass fire, and you can’t use your pyrokinesis.”
“Ah, you see,” the Aussie’s grinned from ear to ear, “you can use a small, controlled fire, to create a breaker of unburnable land therefore stopping the approach of an uncontrollable grass fire.”
Avalanche looked entirely unamused, one sarcastic comment away from punching his friend squarely in the face.
“Should have said forest fire,” Rogue put down two cards and picked up the same, “he would have had a harder time with that.”
“Hey,” he pointed to his temple, “no cheating!”
“Sugar, I never cheat,” she drawled, “I don’t have to.”
“The package was delivered this morning,” Quicksilver interrupted their game, “now we sit back and wait for them to figure it out.”
“Shouldn’t take too long,” Rogue commented, putting in her bid, “from what I gather from Pryde, her and another kid, Douglas, are more than capable of sorting through that much data, faster than anyone we got.”
“How long you think?” their leader asked.
“To find it, a couple of hours,” Rogue shrugged, “interpreting it, dunno.”
“Then we best be ready to move at a moment’s notice,” he nodded and started to turn away before stopping, “oh, and in light of what happened in Bridgeport, Magneto is sending us some… assistance.”
“Dare we ask?” Pyro grabbed cards from the top of the deck.
“I know he’s a pain to work with,” Pietro rolled his eyes, “but deal with it. Anyone else want to try to take on Wolverine by themselves?”
“Sure,” Rogue smiled.
“I’ll need you elsewhere,” he told her pointedly, “so you’ll all have to suck it up and play nice. It’ll make things go smoother and faster.”
“Aye, aye,” the Southerner said with mock enthusiasm to which the speedy mutant shook his head and walked off.
“Note to self,” Pyro folded his cards, “lay off the litter box jokes this time, he doesn’t appreciate them nearly as much as I do.”
…
Perched at his desk in his room, Doug was tapping away at his keyboard as lines of code scrolled down his screen. He had the hard drive connected to the computer which was also connected to the laptop Kitty was using as she sat on the floor, leaning against his bed.
His room was modestly decorated, a few anime posters on the wall, but all his knickknacks were pieces of computers or other like systems. The other side of the room was completely bare, his roommate graduated last year and decided to move on to college instead of sticking around.
Kitty and Doug were facing the same decision as they graduated at the end of the school year and neither had decided what they wanted to do, they had options.
“Hey,” Ben popped his head through the door which was left open due to school policy in the boys and girls dormitory wings, “movie marathon in the lounge, you coming?”
“Nah,” Kitty said, Doug a little oblivious as he read the code at breakneck speed, “maybe later.”
“Alright,” Ben glanced over at him, “Doug? How about you?”
“I’m good,” he told the fire welding mutant.
“Suit yourselves,” Ben shrugged and headed down the hall.
The two lapsed into silence again as they continued to work, until Kitty said, “You seeing this partition?”
“Yeah,” he kept working on the code, “it seems to be a temporary storage area for a port connection to a data backup.”
“Right,” she nodded, “this is the part of the software that under specific circumstances automatically links to a large storage cache of information which is not part of Nimrod or Sentinel, it’s a bank of separate servers.”
“Exactly,” he agreed and moved on with what he was doing.
“So,” she held out the vowel, “what kind of information is it accessing?”
He paused and looked at her, “What do you mean?”
“Well,” Kitty moved slightly on her side to look up at him better, “Nimrod is the specific processor/server which holds the software meant to look for mutants, right?”
“And Sentinel is the overall program,” he nodded.
“Yes, and what is so important to Sentinel that it has to access specific information on a specific secured server,” she asked as if she was trying to answer the question in her head and was coming up empty, “I mean, it can’t be stuff like medical histories or average temperatures, we already know it has real time access to any non-closed database.”
“I see what you mean,” he looked back at the screen as he tried to suss it out, “there would be no need to create a specific connection to a specific database unless it was a closed database connected only to Nimrod.”
“We already found the port for its memory and storage,” she put her laptop down and started to stand, “it’s also on an open system so as to be accessible and transmittable to mobile strike teams. So, what, is this a back up maybe?”
“Possibly,” he started tapping away, accessing the temporary storage port which was empty as it hadn’t been used yet, simply written into the code. “You know, if I check the protocols of when the port is to be activated…” he trailed off as he kept looking, Kitty coming to peer over his shoulder which he didn’t mind too much.
A good minute later, he managed to clear up the code and see the bare bones of it, at which point the purpose of the port became clear.
He looked over at Kitty who was staring at the screen, “Oh, frak.”
…
Jean was sitting in the library, book in hand. She could hear the teens in the lounge down the hall but she had gotten used to the noise a long time ago and enjoyed what quite she did have.
“Oh, hi Jean,” Scott said as he entered the room, making his way to one of the book cases to grab something, “not watching the movie?”
“Attack of the Killer Tomatoes?” she laughed, “Let me guess, Bobby’s pick?”
“He always says he likes the classics,” he chuckled, taking two math theory books from the shelf, “I think they are going to watch Big Fish after.”
“Oh,” she smiled, “I love that movie.”
“I know,” he returned her smile, then went awkwardly silent. It was times like these she very much questioned her stance on not invading people’s minds without permission. Surely it wouldn’t hurt? It could even help?
Scott’s phone rang and he seemed to welcome the interruption.
“Hey, Kitty,” he answered, then after a short pause, “I’m in the library… Okay,” and with that he hung up.
Now Jean was too curious not to take advantage of her telepathy and sensed out towards Kitty just to gain her general mood, “Kitty seems rather agitated.”
“Sounded it, too,” he frowned, “did we make a mistake in letting her on the team? She’s almost eighteen, but she’s still young.”
“Let’s be honest, Scott,” she couldn’t help but grin, “no one lets Kitty do anything. She defines ‘where there is a will, there is a way’.”
“Point taken,” he replied after a moment’s consideration.
A minute later, Kitty and Doug came bounding into the room, slightly short of breath, exclaiming, “We figured it out!”
“Figured what out?” he frowned.
“Why Magneto sent us the drive,” the girl didn’t bother to contain herself, “the government doesn’t have to get Sentinel fully up and running to hunt us.”
“It doesn’t?” Scott said at the same time Jean asked, “Why not?”
“Because they already have files on us,” Doug spoke as if it had been obvious from the beginning,
“Sentinel doesn’t have to wonder if we’re a mutant, it already does” Kitty clarified, “and can track us anywhere we go.”
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